Snow in Summer
by messyfeathers
Summary: On a walk home from their not-a-date at Rico's, Carlos convinces Cecil to spend five minutes in the Dog Park. Cecilos fluff, slightly ooc because I love the idea that they bring out the polar opposite in each other.


Carlos and Cecil ambled leisurely along the streets of Night Vale, having just split the daily pizza special at Big Rico's as a not-a-date. The sky was growing dark only a few minutes late that particular evening, and the lightest snow was beginning to fall, cooling the dry desert air by a good thirty degrees. Somehow the two had wound their way to Summerset Avenue, which of course had been Carlos's subtle design for the entire walk. He had heard whispers of a dog park located next to the Ralph's, but when he asked Cecil about it one night a few weeks back as they moved Carlos into his new apartment, Cecil had fearfully cupped a hand over Carlos's mouth and kept very still for at least three full minutes until he was sure there was no whoosh of helicopters over the roof or bleating devices within earshot and had then told him to never even think of the topic again. Of course it had been all Carlos thought about since, and he had very slyly maneuvered their walk home to cross paths directly with the only entrance gate.

"Come on, Cecil, let's go in. Just for a second." Carlos pleaded. "I just want to look around, see what all the talk is about."

"Someone's spoken to you about the-" Cecil lowered his voice near inaudibility. "Dog Park?" he asked, wide-eyed.

"No, not directly, but I've heard things about curses and strange figures and people being trapped indefinitely, and I just want to know what's really in there." He stamped his worn-out sneakers several times to bring feeling back to his toes.

"Carlos, it's really not a good idea. We shouldn't be here. We shouldn't even know there _is _a here to not be at." Cecil explained in a whisper, taking a nervous sidestep towards the street. Carlos gave him an odd look and shifted his weight to one side.

"Cecil," he said smoothly in his most persuasive tone. "If you agree to spend five minutes exploring the Dog Park with me right now, I will bring you with me on Tuesday to the dig site and show you what we've been excavating all month." It was an irresistible offer. Carlos and his scientists had been excavating a dig site near the entrance to Radon Canyon that was rumored to date back to the first century, making it the second-oldest Night Vale civilization to ever be discovered. Carlos had been adamant throughout the entire process that reporters and photographers and even Cecil were not allowed within a half-mile radius of the site until the entire project was completed and all artifacts catalogued.

Cecil sighed as he weighed the risks. "Will you let me talk about what you've found on the air?" He said finally.

"However much you can describe in thirty seconds." Carlos said with a grin.

"Sixty." Cecil retorted.

"Fourty-five, final offer." Cecil was unconvinced. "Come on, live a little." Carlos said as he tossed his dark curls to shake off the accumulating snow. Maybe it was the thrill of disobedience or the promise of satiated curiosity (or Carlos's perfect hair being tossed perfectly) but Cecil finally agreed to the terms, as long as Carlos allowed him to walk in front. As the gate swung shut behind them, Cecil began to mutter a constant stream of incantations and warding spells that he had learned in his Defensive Dark Magic evening course at the community college. "What are you so afraid of?" Carlos asked with a laugh.

"Swift and painful retribution." Cecil replied without a hint of irony or sarcasm. "The City Council says we're never to acknowledge this place. Much less look at it. Much less be in it." He looked around furtively, glancing back at the gate and shifting his weight uncomfortably.

"You know, you shouldn't take everything they say so seriously." Carlos suggested with a lighthearted laugh. "They're just people. It's not like if you disobey them the world is going to end." Cecil would have reminded him of the time Orville O'Malley refused to attend the Saint Rhonda's Day Parade and as punishment the City Council opened a tear in space and time large enough that it potentially would have consumed the entire solar system and half of the surrounding galaxy, but Cecil had begun to realize that Carlos never understood his pop culture references. "There's not even anything here anyway," Carlos continued disappointedly after walking a short distance into the park. There were no strange shapes or figures, no simmering cracks in the ground, no sentient smoke creatures, and of course no dogs. There were only trees and park benches and a few scattered old-fashioned lampposts. "Look me in the eyes and tell me you aren't glad we at least cleared up the mystery." Cecil looked into Carlos's eyes but the endlessly deep brown seemed to swallow all of his words. "I thought so." Carlos said with a satisfied nod as he turned back the way they'd come.

"I guess it's not that bad." Cecil conceded once speech became possible again. As they passed a bench near one of the ornate lampposts, he suddenly had an idea. He had been trying all night to get Carlos alone so they could talk, but there hadn't been a very right moment until now. "I believe our wager was five minutes," he said, motioning to the bench.

"It was indeed." Carlos replied, swinging lazily around the lamppost and sitting down next to Cecil. "So what should we talk about?" he asked as he folded his arms in close to himself.

"Tell me about your home. What your life was like there." Cecil offered.

"My home.." Carlos began with a sigh that swirled visibly through the chilly snow-filled air. "I guess I liked Chicago alright. Things there are a lot different than here. A lot more predictable and mundane." His eyes suddenly lit up a little. "I had a cat though. Her name was Curie and she just loved keeping me company late at night in my lab. When I got my grant to come here I had to give her to my grandmother. Broke her little heart. But aside from that, I suppose Chicago was just like everywhere else with its rhythms and its quirks and its distractions."

"Do you miss home?" Cecil asked, noticing the distant look that had crept into Carlos's face. He nodded absently.

"I don't regret staying here in Night Vale though." He said with a smile before turning back to watch the falling snow in the light of the lamp. After a few quiet moments, he shivered and rubbed his hands together, shifting position so that he was facing Cecil. "Want to hear a joke?" he asked with an impish grin that stopped Cecil's heart a little.

"Of course." Cecil said, turning slightly to mirror Carlos's position.

"Okay, now it's a bit nerdy, but don't judge me," he said, holding up his hands like a magician about to perform a dazzling trick. "I'm allowed to tell nerdy jokes because I'm a-" he made a show of glancing around suspiciously before loudly whispering "huge nerd." He flashed that smile again and Cecil wondered if the butterflies in his stomach could actually flutter up through his esophagus and escape into the chilled air. "Okay, so. Well." Carlos stammered. "Um." His smile faded and he shook his head. "Nevermind. I was going to tell you a really good joke, but all the really good ones...argon." His face was serious for a moment until it cracked into an embarrassed grin. "That was terrible, I know." Carlos admitted with a self-conscious laugh as he pushed his glasses further up on his nose. Cecil had never been so smitten in his entire life.

"Carlos?" Cecil asked a little cautiously.

"Hm?"

"There's something a little…embarrassing that I've been meaning to talk to you about."

"Alright." Carlos replied, giving Cecil his full attention.

"So last night while I was picking an outfit for tonight," Carlos glanced momentarily down at Cecil's incredibly blue button-down and orange bowtie and suspender set, but didn't reply – only smiled. "I got on the internet to research," Cecil paused briefly to clear his throat, "the proper Chicago ritual for requesting the honor of a first kiss." Carlos's expression did not falter, but an unreadable glimmer crept into his dark eyes. "Now, I wanted to do it properly because, I mean, we have over seventy different customs here in Night Vale alone! But I couldn't find anything substantial on the traditions of Chicago, much less your suburb of Lincoln Park." Carlos tilted his head down to cover a grin, and peeked back up at Cecil over the rim of his glasses. "So I acquired a pig, wolfsbane, the blood of three dead cows, and a cup of twice-blessed coffee to cover all the basics. If you would be so kind as to inform me of the proper custom, I would gladly oblige."

"For me?" Carlos shook his head with a lighthearted laugh. "You killed three cows for me?" Cecil looked perplexed.

"Well, yes. Of course."

"You want to know the Chicago custom for requesting a first kiss?" Cecil nodded in reply. "Here, let me show you." Carlos said, subconsciously biting his lower lip for a split second. Cecil had prepared for everything: blood circles, wolfsbane garlands, even extracting a lower molar from a pig – but he didn't expect what Carlos did next.

He leaned forward suddenly, grabbed Cecil by the suspenders, and pulled him in close until their lips met (and glasses clinked a little, though neither one noticed). At first Cecil couldn't quite grasp that Carlos was actually _kissing _him. Once he did grasp it, he couldn't quite decide how to respond, seeing as he himself had never been kissed before. So he sat, lips puckered for the first split second until Carlos reached up to softly caress the side of Cecil's face as he gently pressed Cecil's lips open just slightly enough that they interlocked - rather like a jigsaw puzzle, Cecil thought. He thought so in retrospect, of course, since at the time he could think of nothing but Carlos, wonderful and perfect, and the warmth of his fingertips as they traced along his jawline, and the softness of his lips, and the faint taste of raspberries from Carlos's SPF 15 chapstick, and most of all how he wished the City Council would punish them by freezing time right here and now so he could live in this moment suspended forever. But soon, far too soon, the moment ended and Carlos pulled away, only slightly. Still close enough that his breath was warm and sweet and summer in the snowy shadows of the Dog Park, one last brush across Cecil's lips that sent a shiver through him before he opened his eyes to see Carlos's sheepish grin.

"Something like that." He said as he let go of Cecil's suspenders and pushed his glasses back up on his nose. The entire kiss couldn't have lasted more than two seconds, but Cecil's whole world was spinning out of control. He couldn't find the words so he said the first reply that came to his mind.

"Good to know." Even as he said the words, he cursed his own stupidity, but Carlos laughed, and making Carlos laugh had recently become Cecil's new favorite pastime.

"I think our five minutes are up." Carlos said as he rose to leave. "You'll be at the ribbon cutting tomorrow afternoon for the new undead mammal exhibit at the Natural History Museum, right?" He asked as he pulled his lightweight jacket closer around himself. Cecil could tell Carlos was still blushing furiously.

"Of course. We plan to cover the event in full." Cecil managed to squeak out. He was afraid to try standing just yet, still unsure if the world had actually changed orbit during the few moments Carlos's lips had been on his.

"Great, then I'll see you there." Carlos grinned as he turned to leave. He turned back at the gate. "Good night, Cecil!" he said with a small wave as he stepped backwards through the entrance. Too soon his footprints disappeared into the milky snow-filled night leaving Cecil, suspenders and all, alone in the Dog Park wondering if it would keep their newly shared secret.

Wondering if some secrets were meant to be kept at all.


End file.
